technology takes away jobs

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me-wonders 128

This thread is to go with Social Security thread, because both of them are about something a teacher said to his class in 1959. We were informed that the purpose of education was changed from liberal education to education for a high tech society. He said we need to be thinking about future where technology eliminated jobs and people had more leisure time. For awhile it seemed the reverse would happen, as technology might new things to manufacture and market, and therefore many more jobs. However, this trend for more things and more jobs is reversing, and we need to design an economic system and social organization for a society with a lot of free time.

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Mr Right Wing 576

This thread is to go with Social Security thread, because both of them are about something a teacher said to his class in 1959. We were informed that the purpose of education was changed from liberal education to education for a high tech society. He said we need to be thinking about future where technology eliminated jobs and people had more leisure time. For awhile it seemed the reverse would happen, as technology might new things to manufacture and market, and therefore many more jobs. However, this trend for more things and more jobs is reversing, and we need to design an economic system and social organization for a society with a lot of free time.

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Ashotep 13,712

Technology usually takes away jobs from the lower end, factories, and makes a few at the upper end in which you had better have a degree to get. Unfortunately there are many people with those degrees wanting the same job.

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me-wonders 128

Or learn to Homestead. There are no jobs. College master degrees always get the barrista job before me.

In the 1960'tys we talked of communal living. Communal living needs to be about more than sharing a garden and kitchen. What held social groups such as tribes, and then larger but not yet industrial communities, together, was singing and shared festivals. I am saying we need to work on our humanness. People are drawn together because we need each other. This isn't just about needing each other to build a barn or run an industry, but I am talking on a more emotional level. I see people walk into the senior center who have mental/emotional issues that prevent them from socializing normally, but just the same, they are there to be around other people. Extremely few people would chose live alone on an island, and never have contact with another human being. In fact, such isolation is known to cause severe mental break down. Early penitentiaries meant to save souls by isolating people to do penitents and they went insane. The point is, we need each other, we are born to be social.

Together, people with a little money can buy and develop land to share, but as the hippies discovered, this is not so easy. Farming is hard work, and you actually have to know something to keep plants alive long enough to become food, and then you have to know how to preserve it. Someone needs to know how to build before there can be shelter and a communal building for sharing meals. And people need good people skills so everyone can get a long. It is sad, but many families can not achieve this, let alone a group of adults. So I ask you, are we perhaps failing?

We all need jobs so we can have our private homes and don't have to share our lives with others. But I ask you how might things by different? Like, if we figure out how government can have revenue from the productivity of machines, and then distribute this money to the people, what might become the focus of our lives?

A White man walked to the top of a mountain with a native American and with his arm passing over the large city below, asked the native American, "What did your people do before all this?" The native American replied, "We sang a lot". I have always thought, the ideal life would be a combination between how the native Americans lived and high technology.

Look at all the industries that become extinct with advanced technology. This is besides all the farm jobs lost to machines and the all the mill jobs lost to machines, and what the increase of robotics will do to jobs.

There’s a fancy word for the technological trend I was writing about in March: ephemeralization. Buckminster Fuller coined the term back in the 1930s to describe the general concept of “doing more with less” by building more human understanding into our machines and factories. Fuller had process innovations like Henry Ford’s assembly lines in mind; he wasn’t thinking about software, which didn’t really exist yet. But the idea still applies to devices like the Apple iPad and the Samsung Galaxy Tab, which replace dozens of other artifacts by recreating their functions on their stupendously versatile touchscreens. If you have a tablet computer and a broadband Internet connection, after all, you don’t really need a laptop, an alarm clock, a watch, a still or video camera, a television, a radio, a phone, an e-book reader, a digital picture frame, an MP3 player, a CD or DVD player, an external hard drive, a game console, a digital audio recorder, a music synthesizer, or a GPS navigation device, not to mention print books, newspapers, or magazines. And that’s just a partial list.

Edited December 18, 2012 by me-wonders

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AsteroidX 2,108

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I wasnt born yet for the hippie generation and its been brushed under the carpet as an episode of American History. Meh. Itleast you got the same welcome home as the vets. (kiddin). I dont foresee large communal living as viable as it was back in that day. Family units must be stronger and not wander to the other side of the country for a job/just because. That is a fundamental breakdown in the family sytem is very prevalent in the majority of the World. They stay closer to each other and in many cases work together to survive. That works for much of the world.

As communities we must be stronger and more reliant on local production for interaction. Neighborhoods are just clusters of single family dwellings and we dont often know our neighbors. This does not help build a strong sense of community nor does it help the general fabric of society. I dont have the answers but I do see the problem for what it is.

Unfortunately we have bigger fish to catch to coin a term. Bigger problems on the horizon will likely further divide America. I hope not but if thats what it is thats what it is.. Well have to overcome this huge devisivness before we can ever move forward.

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Professor T 2,233

This thread is to go with Social Security thread, because both of them are about something a teacher said to his class in 1959. We were informed that the purpose of education was changed from liberal education to education for a high tech society. He said we need to be thinking about future where technology eliminated jobs and people had more leisure time. For awhile it seemed the reverse would happen, as technology might new things to manufacture and market, and therefore many more jobs. However, this trend for more things and more jobs is reversing, and we need to design an economic system and social organization for a society with a lot of free time.

The way I figure it, Capitalism, Corporatism, and Consumerism are all starting to collapse into one big heap.. Don't get me wrong, these big three C's have certainly done wonders and advanced our civilisation to where it is.. But these three C's have seen their time and the time to drop them is fast approaching.. They used to work for us.. But we have become their slaves.. These three big C's no longer serve the people, they serve a small elite who only care about profit and power.

All these Corporations use Advances in Techology (protected by Copyright) remove jobs, lower wages, you name it, these big C's are out to make a profit and they don't give a damn about society so long as they can make a quick buck.. & the Governments really don't care either.. They may say they do, but its the Big C's that pull the strings.. Unemployment is not going to go away.. It's going to get worse...

When I was working for a big corporation, I was involved in the installation of a lot of robotics and machinery that basically put an end to over 300 jobs across the country.. Here's a very rough estimate of the Maths..

Did the cost of our products go down to reflect these savings?? nope it went up, damn near doubled thanks to some clever marketing.

There seriously needs to be a social and economic restrucuring when this kind of thing is going on.. It's foolish to carry on denying the fact that These corporations are raking it in and creating false scarcity in goods and servises just so that they can charge more to customers who cant afford it because Mr Robot took their Jobs and they are Unemployed.. It's foolish to deny that this is happening. The system has been broken by greed and money..

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me-wonders 128

I wasnt born yet for the hippie generation and its been brushed under the carpet as an episode of American History. Meh. Itleast you got the same welcome home as the vets. (kiddin). I dont foresee large communal living as viable as it was back in that day. Family units must be stronger and not wander to the other side of the country for a job/just because. That is a fundamental breakdown in the family sytem is very prevalent in the majority of the World. They stay closer to each other and in many cases work together to survive. That works for much of the world.

As communities we must be stronger and more reliant on local production for interaction. Neighborhoods are just clusters of single family dwellings and we dont often know our neighbors. This does not help build a strong sense of community nor does it help the general fabric of society. I dont have the answers but I do see the problem for what it is.

Unfortunately we have bigger fish to catch to coin a term. Bigger problems on the horizon will likely further divide America. I hope not but if thats what it is thats what it is.. Well have to overcome this huge devisivness before we can ever move forward.

So glad to read your thoughts on that, because this is something we have to seriously discuss. I live next to the fair grounds and the Saturday Market (crafters) have moved in the largest building for the cold wet season, and this place is packed everyday on the weekends. I remember when the Saturday Market was struggling to survive and established businesses were trying to force it out with laws preventing it. I am thrilled to see that has become a popular and strong social movement, supporting crafters and people who still socialize around music and food. Hum, I had not looked at this carefully before, but now feel a stab of pain, realizing the direction our capitalism has taken us. It was just awful to wear anything home made for awhile. Unlike the hippie days when the more something was handmade the better! Retail stores do not invite independent crafters, but only mass industry. Can we think on this for a moment?

Traditionally all cultures were created with some kind of religion, music and festivals. Democracy has the same function when it is better understood and this requires literacy in Greek and Roman classics, which we no longer have. However, we can change that, by educating ourselves and every chance we get, telling others this education is important. Then return to nature. Christianity has a kind of paradoxical relationship with nature, too often associating it with evil. Other cultures embarrassed nature. Our holidays are Christianized pagan celebrations, and I think we would be healthier if we returned to them, and nature. Yipes! tomorrow is the 21. The day of winter solstice. I will be celebrating this with someone who has the same feelings about nature and spiritual matters as I do. Anyway, here we are talking culture, and think of all the things to make and sale related to holidays. Festivals connected to nature can unite people and can create a bit of an economy, selling special breads, clothing, tokens of the special day. This ties us to mother earth and each other.

Let me make this clear. I fully believe we must recreate our culture. Materialism is not essential to having a good life. Appreciating life and good human relationships is essential to life.

Edited December 20, 2012 by me-wonders

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me-wonders 128

Excuse me, but are you suggesting we should ignore what is happening because it has been happening since the beginning of the industrial age? Say, global warming raises the tides and puts salt water into the fresh water further up stream and becomes an increasing agricultural problem, is it not obvious this trend can not tolerated, because ultimately it is destructive? Most of life is about balance, and always too much of a good thing can be bad.

I love technology and it is wonderful robotics can free us from dangerous and tedious labor. Making humans extensions of machines, as was so in the beginning of the industrial revolution, was not all good. It was dehumanizing and that is bad for individuals and families. Can we ponder this for a moment? At first families worked together, but as the industrial age advanced, more and more laws restricted what children and women could do, until basically only men worked, dividing the family excessively between women's work and men's work, creating separate realities for man and women. Autocratic industry lead to autocratic families and socializing children to be depend authority, not a good thing for humans, and not as the elite socialized their children for leadership. We now say an autocratic family is dysfunctional, while at the same time we are so lacking in our understanding of leadership, our democracy is deteriorating into anarchy, and confusion about what has gone wrong. But if we can work our way through this, giving people a decent standard of living and more leisure time, and then return to family and community values, we could have a new golden age.

I talk because I believe we have the potential to have a much better life than in the past. But as individuals sometimes need psychoanalysis to work through their problems, modern civilizations need psychoanalysis, to become aware of their past decisions and therefore, the need to change some of them. We must be aware of how technology is changing us, and with awareness take control of that change.

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me-wonders 128

The way I figure it, Capitalism, Corporatism, and Consumerism are all starting to collapse into one big heap.. Don't get me wrong, these big three C's have certainly done wonders and advanced our civilisation to where it is.. But these three C's have seen their time and the time to drop them is fast approaching.. They used to work for us.. But we have become their slaves.. These three big C's no longer serve the people, they serve a small elite who only care about profit and power.

All these Corporations use Advances in Techology (protected by Copyright) remove jobs, lower wages, you name it, these big C's are out to make a profit and they don't give a damn about society so long as they can make a quick buck.. & the Governments really don't care either.. They may say they do, but its the Big C's that pull the strings.. Unemployment is not going to go away.. It's going to get worse...

When I was working for a big corporation, I was involved in the installation of a lot of robotics and machinery that basically put an end to over 300 jobs across the country.. Here's a very rough estimate of the Maths..

Did the cost of our products go down to reflect these savings?? nope it went up, damn near doubled thanks to some clever marketing.

There seriously needs to be a social and economic restrucuring when this kind of thing is going on.. It's foolish to carry on denying the fact that These corporations are raking it in and creating false scarcity in goods and servises just so that they can charge more to customers who cant afford it because Mr Robot took their Jobs and they are Unemployed.. It's foolish to deny that this is happening. The system has been broken by greed and money..

thank you for your informed post, I would to say more, but I have a two year on my lap demanding attention. Carry one, say more.

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aztek 11,914

Excuse me, but are you suggesting we should ignore what is happening because it has been happening since the beginning of the industrial age

no, i was not suggesting anything at that time, i just mentioned that men have lost jobs to machines since steam power was invented.but if you insist, i suggest you get used to it, cuz it will be happening more and more, and adopt.

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Render 615

The machines taking the jobs of ppl stems from the industrial revolution and taylorism. Organisation have evolved from that stage.

Automatisation doesn't automatically lead to getting fired. Quite the contrary. With new systems, new functions arise. Most companies are also very aware of morale and know that talks of a new system scares ppl. That's why many companies ask for a design in which everyone will still be needed. Sometimes a bit of reschooling needs to happen yes. And that's the way we are headed. Less constrained tasks and more multifunctionalism. More reschooling to keep up and also don't "get stuck" in what you do.

Of course there are companies that deliberately ask for a new system so they can use it as an excuse to fire ppl, but you'll find that these are the minority. It's also very location related. (For example, in China you have a different attitude towards workers than the western world.)

See Toffler and his third wave.

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me-wonders 128

The way I figure it, Capitalism, Corporatism, and Consumerism are all starting to collapse into one big heap.. Don't get me wrong, these big three C's have certainly done wonders and advanced our civilisation to where it is.. But these three C's have seen their time and the time to drop them is fast approaching.. They used to work for us.. But we have become their slaves.. These three big C's no longer serve the people, they serve a small elite who only care about profit and power.

All these Corporations use Advances in Techology (protected by Copyright) remove jobs, lower wages, you name it, these big C's are out to make a profit and they don't give a damn about society so long as they can make a quick buck.. & the Governments really don't care either.. They may say they do, but its the Big C's that pull the strings.. Unemployment is not going to go away.. It's going to get worse...

When I was working for a big corporation, I was involved in the installation of a lot of robotics and machinery that basically put an end to over 300 jobs across the country.. Here's a very rough estimate of the Maths..

Did the cost of our products go down to reflect these savings?? nope it went up, damn near doubled thanks to some clever marketing.

There seriously needs to be a social and economic restrucuring when this kind of thing is going on.. It's foolish to carry on denying the fact that These corporations are raking it in and creating false scarcity in goods and servises just so that they can charge more to customers who cant afford it because Mr Robot took their Jobs and they are Unemployed.. It's foolish to deny that this is happening. The system has been broken by greed and money..

I am wondering if we can use the evolved capitalist model to build the social economic structure we need, given today's technology.

Marx said capitalism evolves, and what Weber has to say about economic social change is most exciting! Here is the problem. We are not well read, so we are not prepared for the necessary discussion. I will blame education for technology for this, because this education has prepared everyone to serve the military industrial complex, instead of preparing everyone for life.

Actually, the cooperation has to answer to the stock holders. I think the idea of moving Social Security into the stock market is a good one, but it was not well thought out. Along this line, we have the idea that some businesses are too big to fail, so the government bails them out when they get into trouble. Hello, this protects the stock holders right?

Maybe what we should throw into this discussion is Deming's democratic model for industry? Our industry is based on England's autocratic model. We enter WWI crying "Democracy and autocracy can not co exist", in complete denial that our industry is autocratic. Autocratic industry is bad for many reasons, including the harm done to families.

I wish everyone were prepared for this discussion, because no one is going to figure things out, if is not you and I. Absolutely everyone, from CEO's to politicians is working to serve him/her self. They have everything to loose, if they do not please others who are also self interested. We have nothing to loose so we are best suited to resolve our social/economic problems. But are we ready for this conversation?

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me-wonders 128

The machines taking the jobs of ppl stems from the industrial revolution and taylorism. Organisation have evolved from that stage.

Automatisation doesn't automatically lead to getting fired. Quite the contrary. With new systems, new functions arise. Most companies are also very aware of morale and know that talks of a new system scares ppl. That's why many companies ask for a design in which everyone will still be needed. Sometimes a bit of reschooling needs to happen yes. And that's the way we are headed. Less constrained tasks and more multifunctionalism. More reschooling to keep up and also don't "get stuck" in what you do.

Of course there are companies that deliberately ask for a new system so they can use it as an excuse to fire ppl, but you'll find that these are the minority. It's also very location related. (For example, in China you have a different attitude towards workers than the western world.)

See Toffler and his third wave.

Okay, you got my attention. There are sooo many books to read, but may be we can agree to reading Toffler's last book, and sharing it in the forum? There is value in knowing history and how things evolved, but we do not realize how different things are today, and will be in the future, our knowledge of the past can't be very helpful. What I would like to do is pick one book and create a forum for that book. Then after everyone has a copy of it, take the book one chapter at a time, and discuss each chapter in the forum. Here is some information about Toffler and his third wave

I have some of Toffler's books and also Buckminister Fuller. I think F.E. Trainer's book "Abandon Affluence!" is also important. We must think globally. There is no way we can industrialize the whole world and maintain a decent standard of living for everyone, by repeating the old industrial model around the world.

Edited December 22, 2012 by me-wonders

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me-wonders 128

no, i was not suggesting anything at that time, i just mentioned that men have lost jobs to machines since steam power was invented.but if you insist, i suggest you get used to it, cuz it will be happening more and more, and adopt.

Adopt to what and how? I kind of liked the idea of communes. The way we talk of the 60ty's is kind of lame. That was a time when some realized we are a path of self destruction and major change need to be made. Communes were about returning to a simpler life and sharing things like a kitchen in common. One kitchen can serve several families, instead of each family owing a refrigerator, stove, and all the rest of the appliances. Of course if several families share the same resources, the market for the appliances shrinks and this is not good for economy as it is structured today.

The trick to making a commune work, is how do you get people to get along? How do you get everyone to do their fair share of the work, and to put down their petty differences? This is completely different from, everyone having his/her own home, because people can not get along for more than an hour or two, before the tension explodes into fighting. Heck, I think most families can not handle getting together for Christmas. I used to live with a lot of family and friends, when everyone was dependent, and now brothers and sisters aren't even talking to each other. Trying to make Christmas work under these conditions, is like pulling a hundred pounds up the side of a steep rock mountain, and avoiding the mountain lions and rock slides. . We have taken individualism down a dark tunnel, and this doesn't work for communal living.

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Render 615

Okay, you got my attention. There are sooo many books to read, but may be we can agree to reading Toffler's last book, and sharing it in the forum? There is value in knowing history and how things evolved, but we do not realize how different things are today, and will be in the future, our knowledge of the past can't be very helpful. What I would like to do is pick one book and create a forum for that book. Then after everyone has a copy of it, take the book one chapter at a time, and discuss each chapter in the forum. Here is some information about Toffler and his third wave

I have some of Toffler's books and also Buckminister Fuller. I think F.E. Trainer's book "Abandon Affluence!" is also important. We must think globally. There is no way we can industrialize the whole world and maintain a decent standard of living for everyone, by repeating the old industrial model around the world.

I dont know about you but i dont have time to read Tofflers book and dont have any reason to do so.

The summarization of Toffler related to this topic is good enough.

There are a lot of ppl who are practicing a profession where they have to take effects of technology into account so i wouldn't worry about it too much. There is no technological apocalypse going on, quite the contrary.

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me-wonders 128

I dont know about you but i dont have time to read Tofflers book and dont have any reason to do so.

The summarization of Toffler related to this topic is good enough.

There are a lot of ppl who are practicing a profession where they have to take effects of technology into account so i wouldn't worry about it too much. There is no technological apocalypse going on, quite the contrary.

Might you explain more about how technology is changing the work environment? Imagine you have to explain this to a 14 year old, who has decided s/he has all the education s/he needs and has decided to not go to school.

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White Unicorn 1,824

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The more you discover, the more you realize that there is far more you don't know.

There's not going to be any big changes because of the government and economic systems in place unless they all break apart which will bring a lot more insanity in the systems and in people's lives. Talk of community life and one house family life not working to get along, imagine the whole country with no sense on how to get along with each other, even the communities that I know could work would probably be invaded by the criminals trying to survive from other areas. Modern people do need a working government to lead us toward the right direction.

The mentality that marketing and profit has brain washed us to put value on things instead of each other. I see how kids are left with TV baby sitter and what they see are not the values we were brainwashed with in the 50s and 60s like how family and caring was the most important thing and everybody can make a difference to the world. I think maybe we have a lot of strife now because us of peace and love not war generations still have a belief in humanity but the kids after never had a taste of what we had they seem to be raised in poverty with parents working too many jobs or utterly spoiled and living rich. How do the poor kids stand a chance to go to college and get out of it now?

I was raised poor working class but still had more than kids today. I had a stay at home mom and grandparents. We came into lots of money from hard work and mostly luck. I was then spoiled rotten and thought my grandparents who were rich then became poor in the depression and became well to do again were wrong. They were right! They always lived poor but with what they needed and wanted and helped others. Money doesn't matter and it only enslaves you to houses, cars and bills and new expensive stuff to throw away and distances you from family. Many of the rich who gave to build hospitals and support charities are now the working poor through bad investments, job loss, illnesses that can take well over a million dollars after the insurance limits that existed. I see it all around just like what happened to my grandparents. I'm lucky because I had lived poor before and know that people are more important than things.

As a dreamer of a better world, I always thought technology like the Jetsons would be better because we'd still have families but in a way we don't. How bad is it when your neice and boy friend text to each other across a Christmas dinner because it's more private and neither one will talk to anybody! There are book's on how to talk at family dinners since no one really talks at all except about weather or something they want to buy!

When I was little I thought that if technology came people would job share and make almost the same money as everyone else. All the George Jetson's would be paid good money to push a button for less hours because of the robots. America has so many natural resources there was enough to share a good life with all and robots would do the meanial work. People would be free to learn, be creative and live a better life with each other. But it ended up the income went down and people with lower level jobs got extra crappy jobs to make ends meet and the only parent children had at home had to go to work too. The other workers made more money and because they were upper corporate or worked 24/7. The investing rich became richer and the working class and poor became poorer. Everyone needs jobs and education to better society as a whole, not constant toil just to survive. Back in the day when people became rich in America they were the working class they lived the dream but still had values. Today it is third generation rich who do not even comprehend working class or being poor, they don't have the same values. I think that has a lot to do with the struggles we now face. Value placed on physical or mental labors are not equal even in their own sector. Just today I met a man who waters flowers as a job he works FT and makes $17 an hour and has no college. Other laborers work for $7.70 doing hard labor in the same town and have college! Corporate says sell sell because you make more on commission but can't survive on their base pays so you work 24/ 7 to find sales. It's the beast of capitalism but other forms of goverment have worse. No easy way out of this at this point.

Our forefathers had freedom and equality in mind but did not foresee the beast of society that would be created by robots taking our jobs and creativity and ultimately our dream of the American life of liberty for the pursuit of happiness. This part was forgotten by the corporate greed since it's educated third or fourth generation have always been sitting pretty as the rulers in the corporate world and regulating themselves!

We all know what is right and must somehow work together and get back on the right track without civil unrest and try to make the system we have better. It won't be easy even if possible.